«Клеветы Страхова», или Протест вдовы и племянника Достоевского
"Strakhov's Slander", or the Protest of Dostoevsky’s Widow and Nephew

Summary/Abstract: N. N. Strakhov, who was close to the Dostoevsky family, proved to be a slanderer after the writer’s death having insulted the memory of the writer in his letter to L.N. Tolstoy of November 28, 1883. This document was published 30 years later – in 1913 in the magazine "The Modern world" (№ 10), when both Dostoevsky and the correspondents had already died. It was Dostoevsky’s widow who defended her husband’s memory against Strakhov’s accusations. During the second half of 1914 and 1915 A.G. Dostoevskaya was preparing a protest she was going to publish. She was collecting signatures of the famous contemporaries who had known the writer well and were able to refute the slander. Andrei Andreevich Dostoevsky, the writer’s nephew, helped her to prepare the protest. Seven letters of Anna G. Dostoevskaya to Andrei A. Dostoevsky concerning their joint activity are for the first time published in the appendix to this article. The writer’s widow did not publish her protest. She gave a response to the descendants and admirers of Dostoevsky’s works in her memoirs that were published according to her will only after her death.

• Details
• Contents